All Good Things
by Shrimpmeister
Summary: ... come to fruition in a Fan Fiction challenge! Please see the forums for details  or just enjoy...... EDIT: one hit for now, but I may expand it later on.


It was as if the school collectively breathed a sigh of relief. Today was the final day of the class of '86. For all graduating students, the next semester would bring new friends, new surroundings, new challenges. For many, this would be away from home at whichever college their talents and efforts had taken them to. For others, their working lives would start as early as next Monday. 

For five students, the last year had changed more than their ages: they had each emerged and grown from their previous persona, as the exposure other cultures and personalities had cast small but defined changes to their characters, that would remain constant for the rest of their lives.

However, before the rest of their lives could begin, they had one more ritual together to get through. The final night party.

Sat high up in the grandstand overlooking the football pitch, John and Andrew watched the sun sink over the horizon, waiting for the others to arrive. Beer and cigarette in hand, John was in reflective mood.

"I tell you, man - I ain't never gonna forget the look on my old man's face when I told him."

"I can imagine" replied Andrew, reaching behind him for a fresh beer. "I doubt that any of us really reckoned on John Bender getting a place at college. We all had you for a tire fitter or something"

"Naah - I was gonna be a rock singer. I got all the attitude. **I prefer bourbon** to beer, given the choice. and just look at this face!"

"Yeah - right!" said Andrew, trying and failing to prevent the laugh from escaping.

"You know, my dad just looked at me. Like I'd failed him or something - sold out. I really thought he expected me to end up just like him - sat at the bottom of a bottle, afraid co come out and see there's always another option."

"**That's the saddest thing I've ever heard** in my whole life" said Andrew, quietly reflecting on the time he could now spend with his father, and what it must be like not to have that.

"I tell you what IS sad - wasting the last night of school sat here with you, when we should be getting blasted and surrounded by girls!"

Both boys laughed as they walked down the steps, and got to the parking lot just in time to see Brian pull into the gates. For once, however, he was not driving his dad's brown Buick sedan, but a shiny new Cadillac. Pulling up next to the roadside, he stepped out and walked round to the back door, opening it. Sat in the back, Claire and Allison were caught in the final act of adjusting their hair and make-up. They looked around, startled at being discovered looking 'less than perfect'.

"What's with the wheels, Bri?" asked John. "We were looking forward to a nice long ride in your dad's dullsmobile!"

"I, erm... **I think it's broken**" replied Brian, reaching into his pocket and removing what turned out to be the alternator leads from a 79 Buick sedan. "Damn thing wouldn't start. So we had no option but to get a rental..."

Andy laughed out loud, and John walked up and slapped Brian between the shoulders. A year or so back, the two never knew each other existed. But recently, Brian's quick thinking had helped John not only escape the endless drudgery of Vernon's detention sessions, he'd helped John to approach school differently, tutoring him at the weekends in Math and English, in return for help in the more 'hands on' subjects, like wood shop, motor engineering, and women. Brian was still nervous around women, but no more so than any other guy he knew.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, they pulled up at the beach. Off into the distance, fires lit up the night sky, as kids celebrated the end of school, making the most of the last night with their classmates before their paths split.

Walking along the shoreline, Brian couldn't help but marvel at the way his life had changed. He'd gone from the geekiest of the geeks, more into playing chess than fondling chests, to being part of the crowd. Sure it was a pretty small crowd, because almost all of them had drifted away from their old scene: John's old gang really didn't see any way they could hang around with him once he'd "sold out" by dating a Princess. All of them had found similar reasons for being excluded, which may be the main reason they were now as close as ever before. So now they had each other, helped each other. Even his crappy fake ID had been sorted, thanks to Allison (instead of being sixty-eight, she'd handed him one with the words "Take this - it will say **'of course I'm eighteen'** to any club bouncer you meet").

Up ahead, Andrew and Allison walked, hand in hand, and Brian could barely remember the surly, silent, untruthful girl that had first walked into detention hall all that time ago.

A little ways behind, John and Claire had stopped walking, and were leaning up against the sea wall, just listening to the waves roll gently up the beach. Claire sensed that John, far from being more relaxed than before, was tense and somewhat morose.

"What's up?" she asked?

"Gotta head off in a week's time. Couple of weeks work Mom has got me - helping her brother build some fences. By the time I get back, you guys will be off on vacation, then college. Time's slippin' past, and ... well, it kinda scares me. Things are getting real, and I'll be heading out to Denver..."

"You thinking this is all going to end?"

"Hell yeah. It's gotta. We all gotta change." John looked down at Claire. "Just 'cos you don't want something to change, don't make no difference. Everything changes."

Claire reached up her hand, ran her fingers through the unruly mop of dark hair, and rubbed the single diamond stud in his earlobe.

"John, **don't look at me like that**. Not everything has to change. My letter of acceptance arrived this morning. I'm not going to California any more. Do you think you've got room for one more friend in Denver?"

"What??!"

"You heard me..."

Brian certainly heard the yell from fifty yards ahead. Claire had told him in the car earlier, and he knew what it meant.

They were no longer a Criminal, an Athlete, a Princess, a Basket-case, and a Brain. They were friends. And he knew that Claire was dead right. Some things would never change...


End file.
